BY NANCY COLE
PHILADELPHIA - After nine straight days of negotiations, Transport Workers Union Local 234 broke off talks on the 30th day of the strike that has shut down the city bus, trolley, and subway lines run by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA).

Local 234 president Steve Brookens charged that SEPTA negotiators and Democratic mayor Edward Rendell had only promised to drop five major antilabor demands to head off the union's threatened picketing of Democratic Party officials, who are scouting a site for the next national convention. "We found out today all they did was lie," Brookens told hundreds of strikers who rallied outside their union offices for most of the day June 30 awaiting word on negotiations.

Strikers then marched more than 20 blocks to Independence Mall in Center City, where the first activity for the Democratic Party site committee was scheduled. After the Democratic officials confirmed the TWU would picket the planned three days of wining and dining, they opted to pack up and leave the city. At a hastily called news conference with Mayor Rendell, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer, site committee vice-chair Lawrence J. Gorski said one of the reasons the Democrats decided to leave the city was to not take, or appear to take, a position on the labor dispute.

Strikers rallied briefly at Independence Mall and then marched back to the union offices. "If we don't settle by July 4, I think SEPTA will stop negotiating and try and starve us out by waiting till September," George Daniel, a mechanic with four years at SEPTA, told the Militant. "But we can hold out. It won't break us."

The major issues in negotiations are the introduction of part-time workers, contracting out maintenance work, workers compensation takebacks, a sweeping "management rights" clause, and changes in disciplinary procedures that would make it easier to fire workers.

"We're fighting for the future of our union," explained Thomas Fishburn, a bus driver for eight years. "We're fighting against privatization; we're fighting so that we won't be fired for whatever reason." Fishburn told the Militant that for SEPTA workers with little seniority like himself, conditions already in effect mean up to a 14-hour day for 8 hours' pay because of the 4- or 5-hour break between morning and afternoon peak traveling times.

At the bus depot on 19th Street and Oregon in South Philadelphia June 30, six of seven pickets told stories of serious injuries they had suffered while working, underscoring the importance of fighting SEPTA's takeback demands around workers' compensation.

"SEPTA does not listen to our complaints about lack of safety," said Bill Williams, a bus driver with 32 years on the job, who was off work for six months with a torn Achilles tendon. "They bought new buses that have several features that make them unsafe." Strikers report that no action has been taken on safety committee recommendations dating from 1993.

A rally at Independence Mall in solidarity with the strike attracted 1,000 strikers and supporters June 27. A large contingent of transit workers from New York City joined the protest, marching into the rally behind a huge TWU Local 100 of Greater New York banner. "We're here to support Local 234," bus driver Lee Williams said. "We feel that what's happening to them could happen to us."

A bus load of members of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees in Atlantic City, New Jersey, were among the other unionists in attendance.

The rally was also in support of 12 members of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 716, toll collectors for the Delaware River Port Authority. The "dirty dozen," as they call themselves, were fired following a march across the Ben Franklin bridge May 16 after which they and about 60 others were arrested. That action had protested replacement of full-time union toll collectors with part- time workers.

After beating back an attempt by the Port Authority to block them, the fired toll takers led another march of 100 across the Ben Franklin bridge following the rally. At the June 30 rally following the breakdown in negotiations, Local 234 president Brookens called on strikers to join a protest the next day called by court workers, organized by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 47.

Nancy Cole is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Congress in Philadelphia's First District and a member of the International Association of Machinists. Candace Wagner, a member of the United Auto Workers, and John Staggs, a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union contributed to this article.  
 
 
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